The Girl in Esperanza
by piKnic
Summary: Vyse, Aika and Fina arrive in Esperanza, and see a familiar face. Who is this girl?


The first thing you notice when you step out of the bridge and onto the deck after a long journey to new lands is the smell of the air in the place. That first gust of fresh air always hits you like a ton of Burroca shells after you've been breathing the recycled ship air all through a flight, even if you've been called out to the deck to fend off some of the local wildlife – the helmsman doesn't slow down for you, and when the wind is at that speed, it's hard enough just to breathe, let alone savour any new aromas.

But the moment you weigh anchor and open that door to the outside, before you even set foot on the deck and long before you descend to the docks… before you've even caught the first glimpse of lands foreign to your eyes that wasn't from behind a window, the smell has totally permeated your ship and the souls aboard.

And it's always the strongest memory for sailors, who spend most of their time in the vast emptiness of the wild blue yonder, the sea among the clouds where there's naught to guide the eyes and ears but a map, compass, and the low rumbling of your engine. The scent of solid ground sticks with you long after the rest filters into the recesses of your mind - the lay of the land, the faces of its people, the colour of its sand – only to be jogged should you ever return.

When we entered the airspace of a town called Esperanza, whose name I'd never known or simply long forgotten, it was neither the dusty-rose of the deep southern sky, nor the rust-eaten, squalid-looking structures that dotted its surface, that were of any familiarity to me. Nothing about them did I recognize…

Nothing, until those deck doors opened, and the smell of the air, the air that seemed as rusty and stagnant as everything else about the town, rushed through the corridors of the Delphinus, and into the corridors of my memory.

I couldn't help but gasp in shock. Some dormant nostalgia had revived in me but for a brief, vivid moment, then in a flash, disappeared. I struggled for all my worth to find its meaning; I wracked my mind of all its earliest recollections, but came up empty. Vyse looked on with some concern, asking me if I was alright… for once, I really didn't know what to tell him.

When we disembarked minutes later, Vyse, Fina, and I split up to cover the most ground. We would converge back at the tavern come nightfall to share our findings. Little did I know that in this desolate ruin of hopes and dreams that I would find a hope for answers I'd long lost.

Esperanza, as I learned, actually meant "hope". It was given the name by fresh-faced, dreamy-eyed, Valuan naval soldiers, who sought to make the passage to the far east, where they would establish relations with the denizens of the lands of the Blue Moon and enlist their aid in the Valua-Nasr conflict. Or, as was often the true motive of the megalomaniacal empire, assimilate them by force.

But the only people who now remained in Esperanza had been the lowly grunts tasked only with sailing and wanting only to explore the new world. They were therefore deemed expendable when Valua withdrew as the plans for domination fell through, due to a nigh-impassable vortex called the Dark Rift, where the many innocent men who did not return were forever marooned.

Of those who did survive, none spoke of fanciful adventures and glory any longer. Sapped of all hope, the name they'd bestowed the town now mocked them with its bitter irony. To ask them what we'd gone there seeking – a means of flying through the Dark Rift – was to receive a response laced with indignation and disdain.

From all but one did Vyse, Fina, or I receive such a response. When we converged back at the tavern to commiserate on our apparent failure, Vyse approached me and took me aside.

"Aika," he told me, "one of the townspeople I met today… I really think you should meet her. Tonight, if you can." His tone was very grave, yet at the same time, full of muted anticipation. The enthusiasm was typical of him, the severity was not.

"Who?" I asked, prying for more details than Vyse, in his coy manner, was ever prone to giving.

"I can show you to her house." He gave a nod in Fina's direction. "I'll tell Fina we're going, and we'll meet up with her back at the inn."

"Alright, I can see that you want me to meet this person for myself," I conceded, never really pleased whenever I failed to extort from Vyse whatever he wanted to hide. But this time, I could see, as he clapped a hand on my shoulder and spoke into my eyes with his own, that he had reason to end it at that.

Once the sky had lost the last shade of its pigment to the shroud of twilight, Vyse and I had arrived at the house. It was fairly similar to the others on the outside, with splintering metal walls and a few broken windows framed by sad-looking sills, that might have once held flowers but now grew nothing but more rust. The sight of it nearly made me tear up, though at the time, I wasn't sure why – it was surely sad to think that someone lived here, but not so much as to make me, always the tomboyish type, cry inside. Vyse could see it, and put a supportive arm around my shoulders.

"Go on," he whispered.

I put my hand to the door, which seemed to shudder at my touch. It pushed open with a screech of its neglected hinges, and Vyse, having told me that she would be waiting for me inside, urged me to go on.

The house was uncharacteristically clean inside, with an obvious effort visible on all the walls and floors to combat the dirtiness that encroached from outside. The furniture and appliances in the main room were well-kept, and in the bedroom, a mahogany shelf of books stood tall and proud with many well-worn volumes decorating its shelves. Adjacent to the shelf was the occupant's soft-looking, lovingly-made bed, the kind that was most inviting to the aching sailor hammock-bound on nights at sea.

I brought my eyes back to the dimly lit far corner of the main room, where I finally noticed her staring back at me. She leaned back on her arms, propping herself up on what looked to be a sink full of clean dishes. She smiled kindly at me. I stepped forward, into the blue light of the stars that streamed in through the window.

"By the Moons…" was all I could say.

"Hello, I'm Katia," she offered. "I have to admit, your friend," she acknowledged Vyse with a smile, "was right – the resemblance is striking."

I couldn't believe my eyes. Her straight, red hair was pulled back in an open top-knot with great precision – I knew how unruly it could be, which is why I wore mine in the braided pigtails that were the butt of many scarecrow jokes. Her round, orange eyes regarded me as though from a reflection. Even her stance, with hips slanted right and a hand on the opposite side, was like a mirror image of my own. She wore a loose-fitting purple tanktop that was surprisingly fashionable given her surroundings, and billowy cut-off pants.

It couldn't be. Could it?

"Aika," Vyse broke in, "Katia told me that her parents, they… they died going into the Dark Rift when she was still in diapers. She's an orphan, just like you."

He paused to let us reflect a bit, then continued. "Only she ended up here, in Esperanza, and you ended up with me, on Pirate Isle…"

It was unbelievable. Could I really have forgotten? Could we have gotten separated, been so far apart…?

"I'm 21," Katia said, "and Vyse tells me you're both 17. So I wouldn't really have been in diapers," she laughed heartily as Vyse grimaced in embarrassment, "but I guess you would have been. I was five or six when my parents and my sister… were all taken from me by People Eater."

"People Eater?" I asked.

She caught herself, and laughed again. "Oh, sorry, that's what I called the Dark Rift as a kid." Her voice quieted, and she said, "I guess it was a little morbid."

When she said her name for the Dark Rift, something again resurged inside me. I was confused, frustrated and elated all at once, and I still couldn't believe it.

"So you would be my sister…" I needed to state it aloud, no matter how obvious it had become. I felt the wetness that had been welling up in my eyes overflow, the first tear in years that I could not blink back splashing like hot lead onto my unsuspecting cheek. I practically fell forward as I went to throw my arms around her.

We stayed, crying like that, a long while. Round the table, in that little house, in the small, forgotten town of Esperanza, we talked and remembered long into the morning, just my best friend, my sister, and I.


End file.
